PBS fave Celtic Thunder serves up Irish music and dance

Celtic Thunder brings all-malelineup with diverse influences

Updated 3:24 pm, Saturday, November 10, 2012

Irish/world music group Celtic Thunder will play at the Majestic. Courtesy photo

Irish/world music group Celtic Thunder will play at the Majestic. Courtesy photo

Photo: Courtesy Photo

PBS fave Celtic Thunder serves up Irish music and dance

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San Antonio should be prepared for a night of music and dance with an Irish accent when Celtic Thunder takes the stage.

It's not hard to think of the production as the masculine answer to the Celtic Woman shows, since both play on PBS (especially during pledge drives) and sell a lot of DVDs. Celtic Thunder became Billboard's Top World Music Artist last year with the top-selling world music CD, and it has performed everywhere from the White House to New York's St. Patrick's Day Parade.

The current 63-city North American tour supports its latest TV special, “Voyage.”

The singers perform a broad selection of solos, duets, trios and group efforts in a show that also makes room for instrumentals and dances. There's a full band, a string quartet, a harp, piano, drums, tin whistles and banjos — everything to get a Celtic groove on, although rock or country classics are also thrown into the mix.

“I think the reason why Celtic Thunder works so well is that people don't get bored with it when they come to see our concert. It's not a one-trick pony. It's not just a Celtic show,” says singer and guitarist Neil Byrne. “There's quite a lot of diversity in it because one thing our musical director and producer Sharon Browne wanted was to get our personalities out there.”

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For example, all of the singers perform solo or together on traditional classics such as “The Mountains of Mourne,” “Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears” and “The Maid of Culmore.”

“Some of these Irish airs are so old that we actually don't know who wrote these songs,” Byrne says. “Some of the old Irish airs are some of the most beautiful melodies ever written. They're absolutely gorgeous.”

Then there are rollicking group outings, such as “Whiskey in a Jar” and “Seven Drunken Nights.”

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Those who saw the 1991 film “The Commitments” know that American music has long been as important to the Irish scene as Celtic musical traditions.

“I didn't get into the whole Celtic scene until my late teens,” recalls Byrne. “Before that I played in a lot of bands and had my own band. I listened to the likes of Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Hall & Oates, Earth Wind & Fire. Steely Dan was a big influence. That era really did it for me.”

For Celtic Thunder, he says, “We always try to keep it fresh. There are just vast amounts of Irish and Celtic and Scottish songs to choose from, and we've tried to raise the bar every time and I think we've managed to do that. Over the last four years we've got a lot of experience from the whole thing.”